SPEECH 



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/ 



JOSEPH R. INGERSOLL, 



THK OREGON BILL: 



I)CI.ly£K£I> 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, 



APKIL IG. 1846. 



C^ WASHINGTON; 

PRINTED BY GALES AND SEATON 

1846. 



^««^ 

i*('^ 



SPEECH. 



The Oregon Bill being under consideration, Mr. J. R. INGERSOLL 

rose and addressed the House as follows: 

The measure now proposed has in view an exclusive exercise of power 
and possession of land in Oregon. It designates the place which is to be 
governed and occupied by no particular name, and it describes it by no 
precise limits. It extends jurisdiction, and the incidents of jurisdiction 
generally, over all thai portion of the territory of the United States lohich 
lies west oj the Bocky Mountains. I object (said Mr. Ingersoll) to this 
language as too indefinite. It begs the question of ownership, which has 
been in a state of fruitless controversy for nearly thirty years ; and it 
exposes to endless dispute, and ever-varying construction, a law which 
ought to be, as the title is claimed to be, clear and unquestionable. The 
professed object is to protect the rights of American settlers. Settlement 
miplies the existence of something to be occupied. It is essential to proper 
legislation, that the object of it should be fully ascertained and distinctly 
communicated. 

The language which I have quoted from the bill is not only indefinite, 
but equivocal. I impute of course no improper design to the committee, 
much less to the member of it who reported the bill ; but the terms are 
deceptive. They are calculated to mislead, by creating a belief that the 
rights of settlers will be measured according to the notion which each 
individual entertains respecting them. There are many opinions as to the 
extent and position of the territory of the United States west of the Rocky 
Mountains. No less than three very recent European publications on the 
subject of Oregon are now before me. Two of them are from the English 
press, and one (Question de I'Oregon, par le Major G. T. Poussin) 
from that of Paris. While Dr. Twiss and Mr. Wallace would contest 
with us all territorial rights, strictly speaking, admitting only a concurrent 
initiate claim, and Major Poussin would, with some of our immediate 
friends, recommend a divided possession, not a few writers and 
speakers among us insist upon an incontestable title to the whole 
ground from 42° to 54° 40'. The doubtful language of the bill might 
apply to any one of these contingencies. In the application of it, however, 
great confusion would arise, and with every iiew occasion a new rule of 
mterpretation might be introduced. When all the original elements of 
title are combined, and discovery, exploration, occupation, and settlement, 
shall have left nothing to complete it but the assertion and exercise of 
eminent domain, there will be little doubt of the sufficiency of the terms 
which are used. But the sturdiest friend of Oregon must admit that, in 
the broad surface of more than twelve degrees of latitude, at the best, 
various stages of advancement may be found ; and while in some places 
settlements are practicable, and admit of protection, by many times the 
larger part is in the merest state of unexplored nature, and will so remain 
for ages. Other portions are held by subjects of another Government, 



who may prefer to receive protection from a source to which they 
acknowledge themselves to owe a corresponding allegiance. If the sweep- 
ing clause which has been selected be intended to embrace the whole with 
indiscriminating and impracticable benevolence, it might find less favor 
than a provision which should cover such objects only as are clearly entitled 
to our care. Let them be distinctly avowed, and there will at least be no 
voting in the dark. The bill which was reported some time ago, and 
afterwards withdrawn, candidly made known its pretensions by metes 
and bounds. This substitute resembles it in all respects, except the pro- 
vision for notice, which has now become unnecessary, because it has met 
with independent support, and except that it conceals the precise character 
of a purpose which has lieretofore been manfully proclaimed. Legislative 
language, notwithstanding the utmost care, will sometimes be exposed to 
doubt and difficulty, when it comes to be applied to use. Statutes are 
often found to be obscure in practice, however cautiously they may have 
been prepared. To render them so purposely in their formation would 
be to use a leaf from the precepts of that veteran diplomatist who said that 
language was made to conceal our thoughts; or to adopt the idea of another 
master in the same school, who once wrote to his Government from the 
Hague, that a certain Russian minister had fallen into an error, common to 
men of weak understanding, in believing that things were in reality what 
they seemed to be. 

It has been supposed that the measure contemplated has one or more 
precedents in the British statute book, where enactments are found for 
regulating the fur trade, and establishmg criminal and civil jurisdiction in 
certain parts of North America. I ventured to suggest a day or two since 
that there was some mislakti in this, and I beg leave to say a few words 
in relation to it here. Certain well-known elementary rules for the con- 
struction of statutes will show that these acts of Parliament are no justifi- 
cation for this proceeding. The mischief that existed, and the remedy 
that was provided, furnish a guide to the true construction of them. In 
those wild regions which skirt the British provinces, agents of rival 
British companies found an arena for a series of violent conflicts. Every 
kind of disorder was practised with impunity. The Indian territories, as 
they were called, became an abode of outlaws, who were, nevertheless, 
British subjects, beyond the pale of British control. The whole scope of 
the effort of the Government was to correct this evil. It did not contem- 
plate an interference with the land. It did not look to the citizens or sub- 
jects of any other nation. It merely designed to extend the jurisdiction of 
the realm over those who had made themselves independent of it, without 
becoming subject to any'other restraint, and who lived in the free indul- 
gence of unbridled passions, aggravated by rival interests and the lust of 
gain. During the war with this country these feuds were permitted to 
flourisii. Soon after peace was restored, attention was anxiously directed 
to them. Sir John Sherbrook, Governor General of the Canadas, issued 
his proclamation on the 3d of May, 1817, This paper asserts the exist- 
ence of breaches of the peace, nnd acts of force and violence, of conspi- 
racies, unlawful assemblies, riots, affrays, and murders. It imputes them 
all to conteniions between certain merchants carrying on trade in the In- 
dian territories under the names of the Hud.son's Bay Company and 
Northwest Company. It announces its purpose to restrain these offences, 
and to bring to condign punishment the perpetrators ; and it constitutes 



5 

civil magistrates, and justices of. the peace, and special commissioners^ to 
discover and apprehend the crimmals, to repress and discourage crimes, 
and to mE\intain and preserve the peace and the laws. ■ u . 

This prorlamaiion was followed up by the act of Parliament of July, 2y 
1821, which is the principal subject of objection. We have seen the mis- 
chief which existed, the remedy contemplated, and the persons to whom 
that remedy was to apply. The spirit and meaning of the law look to 
British subjects, and to them alone. The subject-matter is their lawless 
condition — the effects and consequences are punishments of a well-known 
class of persons. The rules thus furnished would lead usso to .interpret a 
highly, penal law that it will not involve a breach of international comity. 
We need not provoke our own judgments to an exercise of the powers of 
construction. It has been done to our hand by the most conclusive, I; 
would say in relation to the subject, by the highest authority. During the 
negotiations of 1826-'27, Mr. Gallatin brought this statute to the attention of 
the British Government, and received the most satisfactory evidence of the 
absolute and rigid limitation of it to the subjects of the Power which passed 
the law. In his despatch of the 7th. August, 1827, he writes thus to Mr. 
Clay from London : "The British Plenipotentiaries did not admit that the 
act of Parliament of July, 1821, was susceptible of the strict literal con- 
struction I had put upon it. They declared, explicitly, that it had no 
other object but the maintenance of order amongst British subjects, and 
had. never been' intended to apply to citizens of the United States. That 
such was not the intention of Great Britain was evident from the. various 
proposals now made on her part, having all for their object to prevent 
both parties from assuming an exclusive jurisdiction." They who would 
have been pirates if they were on the seas, and subject to punishment not- 
withstanding the freedom from all especial jurisdiction of the element on 
which they sailed, merely ceased to be outlaws on land by the necessary 
restraints and penalties of legislation, without any assertion of eminent 
domain. Indeed, the statute contains a special reservation in favor of 
American citizens. This has been supposed to apply only to trade with 
the Indians; but, it is coextensive with the purposes of the act. It recog- 
nises the treaty as an existing and a paramount law ; and it could not, 
without destroying its obvious intent, be limited except by the terms of the 
treaty itself. Were it otherwise, another treaty, made half a. dozen years 
afterwards, and simply prqionging indefinitely the operation of the first, 
has superseded the statute, and has become once more a supreme law. i 

To this moment, and at all times, the British Government liave disclaimed 
all such pretensions as have been alleged to be manifested in th^eir written 
law. The »'=;tatemf^nt annexed to the protocol of the sixth conference by 
Mr. Huskisson and Mr. Addington, British Plenipotentiaries, in the nego- 
tiation of 1826-'27, in reference to Oregon, asserts that " Great Britain claims 
no exclusive sovereignty over any portion of that territory. Her present 
claim," it proceeds, " not in respect to any part, but to the whole, is limit- 
ed to a right of joint occupancy in common with other States, leaving 
the right of exclusive dominion in abeyance." Mr. Pakenham, in his 
argument of July 29, 1845, without asserting any thing like absolute sove- 
reignty,' endeavors merely to prove that "the position of Great Britain in 
regard to ' her claim, whether to the whole or to any particular portion of 
the Oregon territory, is at least as good as that of the United States." 
Prudence has been shown in the course of successive negotiations, by vb- 



6 

staining from the assertion of title, and giving to the pretensions of Great 
Britain a lowlier but not less ambitious name. They have been pru- 
dently called her claims. Title is too lofty a term to be correctly used by 
either of the parties litigant. It implies what cannot justly be said in rela- 
tion to any holder of rights like these. The object itself is not in a condi- 
tion for proprietary ownership. Nearly the whole of it is one broad ex- 
panse of wild iaiid, savage rocks, and dreary streams. In 182S, an early 
movement was made towards its occupation by citizens of the United 
States, who prayed the aid of Congress in a memorial, in which they char- 
acterized it all as wilderness. As to settlements, which your bill designs to 
protect as matter of right, I fear we should stand on unequal ground with 
our competitor, both in the priority and number of them. From 1813 to 
1823, we learn from Mr. Greenhow, few if any citizens of the United States 
entered the countries west of the Rocky Mountains. (Page 356.) The 
first of these colonies, he informs us, was founded in 1834. (Page 360.) 
Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, names the year 1806 as " the era of the 
commencement of the first fixed methodical and continuous occupation of 
the country; the first actual use made of it ; the first regularly conducted 
attempt to develop its natural resources." 

This writer enumerates eighteen different establishments under the name 
of forts, from Fort Citrille to Fort Vancouver, some of which are head- 
quarters for hunting parties in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, 
besides a village of fifty-three houses, " and the Vancouver farm, stretch- 
ing up and down the river — 3,000 acres, fenced into beautiful fields, and 
sprinkled with dairy houses and herdsmen's and shepherd's cottages." 
There are spots of verdure in the extended deserts of Arabia ; but they 
are so thinly scattered over the almost immeasurable vast, that the exhausted 
traveler often sinks before he can reach their refreshing atmosphere. 

I hope to say more of this subject of title, or rather of relative right of 
occupation, before I take my seat. It is necessary now to turn to the par- 
ticular merits of the bill before us, and its co-ordinate evils. We are dis- 
cussing the second in a long list of disastrous circumstances, of which no- 
tice to terminate the treaty of joint occupancy was ihe fv^st. That first 
step, if in an evil hour it shall be adopted, will prove the costing step in a 
progression of incidents which can bring with iheui nothing but calamity. 
Besides the innate importance of the thing itself, it derives infinite moment 
from its position in the front of a series of events that threaten in inevitable 
succession to follow it — events that will be recollected for ages. While 
individual differences, not strictly and in all instances confined to party lines, 
have distinguished the course of Congressional proceedings on these inter- 
esting topics, principles of separation are not less marked and obvious than 
pei'sonal differences of opinion. Opposite conclusions are drawn from pre- 
mises not seemingly dissimilar. The one great leading measure which still 
hangs in threatening augury above our heads is, in the declared judgment 
of those who urge it, of pressing necessity, and of no threatenii)g aspect ; 
while it is regarded by its opponents as quite unnecessary in itself, and 
fraught with disastrous consequences. Let gentlemen who so warmly in- 
sist upon giving the stern notice of a determination to renounce an arrange- 
ment which has preserved harmony in the particular region for nearly 
thirty years deceive themselves as to the true character of the proceeding 
as they may, they may depend upon it they are assuming the attitude 



without the armor, and they are unfurhng the banner without providing 
the men or the materiel of war. 

The advocates of " notice" and its incidents complain of wlial they are 
pleased to call a war cry, and insist that it should be separated from the 
argument. They forget that it is part of the esi^ential question itself. If 
the tendency of a proceeding is to provoke or produce unnecessary war, it 
would be difiicult to conceive a more forcible objection to it. Deprive the 
proposition of this effect, and it loses half of its cHormity, It may remain 
idle and unnecessary still, but its primary and most pernicious attributes 
are taken from it. For the very reason that notice is the prelude to hos- 
tilities, the casting of the herald's spear, it is to be avoided. You are the 
master of your own actions, but not of those of others. Events that are to 
react upon your movements are beyond the reach of your control. You 
cannot imbue them with the influence of desires or expectations that you 
may chance to entertain, by fanciful predictions of a supposed reluctance 
from abroad, much less by crying out peace, peace, when there is no peace. 
When Lord Suffolk, in the British House of Peers, proposed the employ- 
ment of Indian allies in the war with our fathers — the employment, as 
Lord Chatham termed it, of the "cannibal savage, thirsting for blood, tor- 
turing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims" — 
it was all in the name of religion and humanity ! Nor is it by any stand- 
ard of judgment or justice which may be adopted here, that the course of 
conduct of a foreign nation is to be regulated. That foreign nation will 
probably determine and act for herself at her own pleasure, and as she has 
done sometimes heretofore, in strange departure, perhaps, from our well- 
founded notions of propriety. Who would have thought, according to the 
confident predictions of the present time, that she would, in former days, 
have continued to impress seamen and confiscate property alike protected 
by the asgis of our flag, for the purpose of supporting her own navy and of 
retaliating upon another ruthless belligerent ? Yet she persisted in impress- 
ments and proclamations of blockade, at the peril of the commission of in- 
justice, disregarding complaints and remonstrances, violating established 
principles of international law, and in the face of threatened and actual 
war. She chose in preference, and in pursuance of the dictates of a hostile 
spirit towards her historical enemy, to forego many advantages of commerce, 
and some of friendship and respect. Let it be borne in mind, that the for- 
mer war ended with the causes that produced it. The contending parties 
sheathed their swords for lack of argument. If another is to ensue, no 
length of continuance, no change of circumstances, can change the differ- 
ences in which it will have originated. These will remain indelibly marked 
upon the earth, as long as the Rocky Mountains shall rear their lofty heads 
above the clouds in proud observance of them. 

Your own historian, the author of an authentic work on Oregon, which 
was prepared under the auspices of one branch of the Government, and has 
received the sanction of another, discusses this point of giving notice in the 
abstract, and when the whole question was free from much of the irrita- 
tion that now surrounds it. In his book (page 390) he observes, that " such 
a notice can only be regarded as the announcement of the determination of 
the party giving it, to take forcible possession at the end of the term," It 
was argued not long since on this floor, tliat, because the act of giving notice 
was a war measure, it should emanate from Congress — with that body be- 
ing deposited, by the Constitution, the high responsibility of declaring war. 



8 

Even now, thel'e are two modes of attaining the object pfofessedly'aimed 
at — the abrogation of the convention. The one, as it appears, full of dire 
omen and portentous rage, with gauntlet hurled and lance in rest — that is, 
notice^^defying, inexorable, force-announcing notice ! The other bears in 
its right hand gentle peace. It proposes that, as the treaty began in ami- 
cable negotiation, so in amicable negotiation it shall end. It is not intended 
to be argued here^'that either course is necessary or expedient, unless it be, 
by the latter' expedient, to open anew the way to final settlement, which 
ought never to have been closed ; the opening of which, by direct and frank 
proposal, seems to be embarrassing to the plenipotentiaries themselves. 
Except for this, both had better be omitted. But if you are bent upon the 
accomplishment of a particular end — the abrogation of the treaty; and if, 
also, you believe and declare that you design, in abrogating it, nothing else 
than peace, do it in a manner that may not either be misunderstood or mis- 
applied: do '\i peacefully, if you design ii peaceably. 

That treaty has been well designated in former times, just as it is now, 
a treaty of joint occupation. I should be sorry to relinquish for it that char- 
acter. Give up that, and your antagonist stands on vantage gi'oiind. If 
his numerous posts — some of them strong and extensive — aria not harmless 
by consent, as establishments contemplaled by the treaty, they are settle- 
ments of defiance and opposition, which raiay have derived strength from 
time and independent existence. They may create new elements of trouble, 
which the provisions of joint occupancy are calculated eftectually t6 pre- 
vent. Mr. Gallatin uniformly thus denominated it ; so does Mr. Buchanan. 
It was offered, protocolled, accepted, acted on, and has always been treated 
as such. Its language admits of no other interpretation. Good faith would 
forbid a departure, now, from its long understood nature and name, even 
if policy suggested (as it clearly does not) a change. Notice of the termi- 
nation of this agreement is urged— uncompromising, one sided notice— 
with no consultation of the coiivenience of the other party, with no defer- 
ence for the ordinary rules of courtesy, merely because the treaty provides 
for it as a dernier tesort, in the possible failure of other means, as furnish- 
ing, in any event, a reserved right, to a certain extent, in either party, if 
other opportunities should be foreclosed. Between individuals, what is the 
course of conduct on Occasions of strict analogy ? The law gives a right to 
distrain when rent is in arrear: Does a landlord, therefore, seize at once the 
household goods of a thriving tenant ? Does the lender of a sum of money, 
for an indefinite period, to a friend, send the sheriff to arrest him within 
four-and twenty hours of the time of loan ? These arc rights — perfect rights; 
but they would not be exercised in a community that is fit to live in. No- 
tice is of the same character. No principle of law is better established than 
this: " Summum jus sum?na injuria.^' A stipulation for notice was in- 
tended for such a state of things as now exists with Mexico : when no min- 
ister residing at either Court, and formal negotiation being necessarily sus- 
pended, an arrangement, such as that with England respecting Oregon, 
could be terminated only by one-sided notice. As things are, it would 
wear a hostile aspect, and have a hostile effect, oven if it stood alone ; for 
it would announce a peremptory determination (and nothing else) to take 
exclusive possession, and exercise exclusive jurisdiction, when the barriers 
of the treaty should be broken down. But coupled, as it is too manifestly 
intended to be^ with other unerring signs, either simultaneous in origin, or 
composing a series of consecutive acts of legislation, all of them parts of 



one consistent and uniform system, it can lead only to a belligeinnt result. 
Ask imi)artial persons, who are not in the vortex of dissenting judgment into ■ 
which we are plunged; inquire of the lookers-on here in Vienna, friendly 
representatives of foreign States; consult any unbiased minds, and see if 
they will not pronounce your notice a measure of incipient hostility. Thus, 
in the existing crisis, tiiere are but two parties to the Oregon question — a 
peace party and a war party. All other points of difference are at least 
postponed. The measures at once desired or deprecated, advocated or con- 
demned, have one only tendency — and that is, downwards, towards war. 
Like the descensus ^verni, it is perhaps the easiest, and, in its very ex- 
citement, is not without attraction ; but the step, once taken, may be fatal 
and irrevocable. To return from it will be difficult, if not impracticable. 
Whether the final and fatal result is the rather to be dreaded or despised, 
is not the point of immediate inquiry. Is that result fairly and naturally 
probable ? Such i^Jlie question we propose, and Avhich we desire should 
be met. 

The discussion is supposed to be unduly embarrassed by appeals to the 
very tendency to which I have adverted. Such a tendency is of course 
reluctantly admitted by those who maintain the side of the argument to 
which it necessarily belongs. The mind instinctively revolts from conse- 
quences so painful, and denies that they are the corollary of a favorite 
proposition. In the mere abstract, few men avow themselves the advo- 
cates of war. Sometimes a curse, generally a crime, and always a calamity, 
they who defend it seek for palliation in supposed injuries beyond endu- 
rance, or palpable rights withheld, or other necessary inducements, which 
are in the particular instance deemed too powerful to be withstood. At 
the best, it is a reproach to civilized society, a relic of barbarism, a return 
for the occasion to habits of savage life, where, unrestrained by disciplined 
reason, it exists between man and man, as it does between the beasts thai 
perish. Two of the bravest men and best soldiers known to history enter- 
tained, more than two centuries ago, an honest hope that by a general 
arrangement among nations it might be obviated. These gallant spirits 
were Henry IV of France and his wise minister the Due de Sully. Tiie 
death of Queen Elizabeth probably prevented a fair experiment from being 
made. ^Var has sometimes, indeed, seemingly redeeming qualities, which 
give to it a temptation, in spite of all its deformities. Power and pride and 
glory and heroism and conquest and renown, gather together in rich and 
glittering array, to crown the liead of cruelty, and to clothe with garlands 
the gory limbs of sin and death. "The battle of the warrior," says the 
book of inspiration, "is always with confused noise and with garments 
dyed in blood." Calamity, crime, and curse — war has existed from the 
earliest periods of society, as a necessary evil. Utopian would be the policy 
that should hope at all times to dispense with it. Wisdom consists in re- 
garding it as a remedy for otherwise helpless maladies alone, as the forlorn 
hope of exhausted and baffled argument — literally as ihe ultima ratio gen- 
tium. A wanton adoption of it, or of measures which, through however 
long a chain of connected and dependent circimistances, lead finally to the 
same result, would disgrace a virtuous people and an enlightened age. 

For what ptnpose are this notice and its incidents designed .■' To accel- 
erate adjustment? We are told, officially, that conference li, at an end. 
To change the present relations of the couiitry as rcopects occupation of 
the debatable ground ? They may be changed in a moment by negotia- 



w 

tion. To give renewed life to a slumbering correspondence ? It may be done 
at once by answering to the point the last letter of the British Plenipoten- 
tiary, which has never yet been done, and still is due. The first error in 
the negotiation was not on our side. It consisted of the abrupt rejection 
by the British Plenipotentiary of an offer which, if not acceptable, might 
have been modified. After this peremptory and somewhat uncourteous 
refusal, it might well become a great nation formally to signify a desire 
that the proposition might be renewed. It has been manifested from high 
places that the rejection, and the manner of it, were not approved. The 
Sovereign herself has declared from her throne that no effort consist- 
ent with national honor shall be wanting on her part " to bring this ques- 
tion to an early and peaceful termination." Her representative in the 
House of Commons and the leader of the popular party have united in ex- 
pressions of regret for the act of their Minister. After this virtual dis- 
claimer, it might scarcely less well become another great nation formally 
to renew the offer. Where real magnanimity prevails, no mere prin- 
ciple of etiquette should be allowed to interfere with the high interests 
and the higher duty of nations. These are not the objects ; if they 
were, they might be without circuity attained. What then? Notice is 
designed not to unfetter negotiation — it would chain it up — but simply as 
a prelude to exclusive possession of territory now jointly occupied; to 
be taken, because we choose to take it, in our own way. Notice has 
never been thought of as a measure to stand alone. When at the last ses- 
sion of Congress it found its way into initiate legislation, it was as an 
amendment to a bill for the immediate exercise of exclusive jurisdiction 
over the whole ground. Twice has this extreme effort of absolute control 
made its way half through Congress — at first in 1843, when the Senate 
blew the blast of war, and the redeeming spirit of peace providentially 
breathed here ; and once when we in turn adopted the perilous enactment, 
and the onward surge which it created was stayed at the other end of the 
Capitol. We have strangely changed our minds. It was my honored 
friend from Massaehusetts, now not reluctant for extreme measures, who 
reported against the Senate bill. It was his successor in the place of chair- 
man of the Committee of Foreign Affairs who reported against a resolution 
of similar import, which was introduced by a gentleman now before me 
from Indiana. 

What is the purport of the present bill ? It extends Iowa jurisdiction 
over the whole territory which is in dispute, and it reserves to the subjects 
of Great Britain the rights and privileges secured by the third article of the 
treaty of 1818 and that of 1827, only " until said treaty stipulation shall 
cease by virtue of the notice provided for in the second article," and no 
longer. It thus assumes Oregon for our own — enforces at once, by threat 
of arms, and after the brief period of a few short months, in rigorous exer- 
cise, at the point of the bayonet, the laws of the Republic over every inch 
of land and every living soul; proposes grants, with unsparing spirit, by 
hundreds of fair acres, as temptations to settlers ; assumes absolute control 
over trade and intercourse with all the Indian tribes; organizes and equips 
a military force ; and lays down a mail route from St. Joseph's, Missouri, 
to the mouth of the Columbia river. It extirpates from the face of the 
Oregon earth the British race and name, and it plants the standard of lib- 
erty and the Union, in proud and uncompromising supremacy, on every 
rocky eminence. 



11 

Our question is not whether Great Britain ought to acquiesce in this high- 
handed course, but whether, in the fair estimate of probabilities, she will. 
Remember, you have already offered her one-half, and she has refused 
it with disdain. Do you seriously believe that she will content herself with 
none ? Will her desires, which even six bells of latitude cannot satisfy, be 
satiated with less than the measure of a grave ? The leaves of the Sybil 
acquired new value iji the eye of their possessor as they were reduced in 
number. You have by your own act persuaded England to believe that 
she ought to indulge some hopes, — that she has more than the shadow of a 
shade. Yon have repeatedly, in times past and present, proposed to give 
her barely less than she was willing to receive. By what scale of reason 
or philosophy is her expected satisfaction in the future to be measured ? 
She asked you for bread ; you offered to share witli her your loaf, and she 
has cast it in an angry spirit away. She again asks you for bread; you 
give her a stone, and you believe she will receive it, if^not with gratitude, 
at least without a frown ! It is gravely argued on this floor, that your 
notice shall be given, and that, at the expiration of the term assigned by it, 
forcible possession shall be taken of every inch of the disputed ground; and 
yet that there will be no war ! A powerful nation, armed to the teeth, her 
banners fanned for ages by conquest's crimson wing, not distinguished for 
the patience of her temper or her tender love for these United States, 
will stand tamely by and patiently behold her cherished settlements assailed 
and scattered; her time-honored charters violated and trampled in the 
dust; her subjects dragged before foreign magistrates and condemned by 
foreign laws ; their property confiscated, their persons imprisoned, their 
lives perhaps sacrificed ! If, in the wide-reaching and sagacious policy of 
that deep seated throne, there be one circumstance to which it clings with 
more tenacity than all the rest, it is the tender, ardent zeal, the maternal affec- 
tion, with which it watches over, protects, and cherishes the children of the 
realm, in every quarter and corner of the globe. This never-ceasing care is 
the incentive to patriotism and the reward of loyalty. Time cannot enfeeble 
it, or distance diminish its freshness or its fervor, or circumstances rob it of 
a particle of its reciprocal attractiveness and charms. It warms the liege 
bosom in the frozen regions of Labrador, and it gives new vigor to the sin- 
ews under the burning sun of either India, as well as in the giant metropo- 
lis of the Insular domain. I am a Roman citizen, was a cry, the neglect 
of which brought on the ruin of a powerful Sicilian praetor, and drove him 
into perpetual exile. I am a Roman citizen, was an exclamation which 
ascended with the loftiest flights of the eloquence of Cicero. A similar 
appeal from the liegemen of England is not inaudible, if uttered at the 
extremity of the diameter of the earth; it would thrill and vibrate in every 
pulse and nerve of the vast body politic; it would be heard and responded 
to, from the shores of the Pacific, at the heart and centre of the empire ; and 
all that accumulated wealth, which is the wonder of the world, and all 
those burnished arms, whicli have never failed to glitter whenever the 
pride of the nation has bidden their approach, for disaster, for victory, or 
for defeat, in the lens of Walcheren, or on the field of Waterloo, or on the 
banks of the Mississippi, or the frozen hills of India, would be put in reciui- 
sition for the rescue. The colonial policy of England, her vital prosperity, 
her existence as a nation, are involved in the issue, and it would be mad- 
ness to suppose that these essential purposes would now for the first time 
be overlooked or forgotten. You are leading off blindfold a torch dance 



12 

in the midst of combustibles, and trusting to accident that they will not 
take fire, when you act and argue as is proposed. 

What is the object for which these risks are to be unnecessarily run? I 
say nothing of the prospect of easy and almost imperceptible acquisition, in 
the natural course of things ; or of the facility of accomplishing all that can 
be immediately wanted, by giving laws to your own citizens, controlling 
the evil tendencies of savage tribes, and rendering more easy the access 
and the intercourse of travellers. These are fair and unexceptionable ex- 
pedients. They are suggested in the annual message of the President, and 
they are far short of the measures now proposed. But let us see in the 
first place, and during the progress of the experiment, whether Oregon be 
worth the vexation it is giving birth to, whether this land of promise does 
indeed flow with milk and honey. Of extent sufficient to tempt the appe- 
tite of a nation like Ireland or Switzerland, or China or Hindostan, nations 
that have people beyond subsistence or ground for them to till, where a 
sterner and more cruel infanticide obviates the stern necessity of emigra- 
tion, or where emigration supplies a remedy which infanticide affords else- 
where ; more than three times as large, we have been told, as all the sur- 
face of the British islands, and nearly or quite equal to our thirteen original 
States in extent ; not, however, in extent desirable, because not needful to 
a people yet supplied with land beyond the wants of centuries; not calcu- 
lated in reason to tempt the sober agriculturist from the prairies of the less 
distant West, from which the journey of a family to Oregon would cost the 
price of a farm. In every other particular a country one would think not 
so desirable as to fix the footsteps of the wanderer, or attract the movement 
of the steady and settled occupant of a distant region. Nature has seemed 
to assign barriers so definite as to mark the place as one of peculiar isola- 
tion for itself, and to forbid easy access to it from the rest of the world. 
Not one navigable river, if geography is to be credited, intersects its rug- 
ged precipices or inhospitable. plains. 

Recent and authentic accounts represent the whole country as so inter- 
sected by ranges of lofty mountains, that the climate is generally severe, 
and only a small portion of the land is susceptible of cultivation. Your 
main quarrel is now about the use of the Columbia river, as that succes- 
sion of shoots and cataracts is called. "The banks of the Upper Colum- 
bia," says Captain Wilkes, "are altogether devoid of any alluvial flats, 
destitute of even scattered trees; there is no freshness in the little vegeta- 
tion on its borders, the sterile sands reach to its very brink ; it is scarcely 
to be believed until its banks are reached that a mighty river is rolling its 
waters past these arid wastes." At its mouth nature denies an entrance 
during eight months of the year, and at all seasons renders it so difficult 
and dangerous that in one fatal attempt made by naval skill and energy, 
without especial difficulties from the elements, a sloop of war lodged her 
stout timbers on the shoals, some fifteen miles it is believed from the capes. 
There they are likely to remain, a beacon to the future navigator. A pre- 
vious effort of Captain Thorne, in the service of the Pacific Company, had 
succeeded, in March, ISll, with great difficulty and the loss of three men. 
. The whole course of the river is minutely described by Lewis and Clarke, 
as it was traversed by them forty years ago. It has not since shifted it& 
rocky bed, or levelled the precipices which confine its waters. These in- 
trepid travellers reached the ocean by means of portages round the more 



13 

difficult places, where the river would have afforded them a precarious 
means of transportation. 

Such are some of the features of a counfry for which you are going to 
war, of.choice and ul preference to other means of acquisition ! Small 
portions of it comparatively are represented as fit for cultivation; its great 
surface covered, as you have been told, with " antres vast, and deserts idle." 
Might not the description have been carried out, with " the cannibals that 
each other eat ?" Captain Clarke met with a tribe, he says, among the 
most amiable he had seen, called the Chopunnisli, one of whose chiefs 
wore a tippet of human scalps, decorated with the thumbs and fingers of 
those whom he had slain. One of the last published letters on the subject 
of Oregon describes a party of travellers from the Wallamette valley as 
having been robbed by a band of Pawnees of a sum of money, and one of 
the party as having been injured by their war clubs. To indemnify him 
for his pecuniary loss, a bill has actually been reported to the Senate, and is 
new awaiting the action of that body. It is curious how well the description 
given in Koch's <' Traites de Paix/? in connexion with the treaty of the 
Escurial of 2Sth; October, 1790, would fit the place! and the circumstances 
of the present day.* Where is this desired coast in relation to the rest of 
the world ? A broad surface of nine thousand miles of ocean lies between 
it and its Asiatic neighbor ; and nearly m mid-ocean rise the Sandwich 
islands, at the distance of 720 marine leagues, and the Marquesas distant 
by two hundred more. With the aid of. the trade winds the outward voy- 
age could be performed by traversing something like eleven thousand 
miles. Inward, no such assistance would be found, and the voyage would 
be much longer. 

Thus separated from the rest of the world, and thrown upon its own 
resources, Oregon will probably be found any thing but prolific in the pro- 
duction of them. Whatever may be its future -fitness for pasture grounds, 
the animals heiretofore sustained have not been such as produce their an- 
nual and returning supplies, in renewed and multiplied extent — but those 
which, furnishing for a while their quota of comforts to civilized society 
with their lives, must soon altogether perish, and leave behind them a 
more hopeless wilderness. Maize and corn have not succeeded, unless in 
very limited spots. NotJiing in the distance from the ocean is to be grati- 
fied except a love of adventure, and the wild excitements of a prolonged 
condition of what is usually the first stage of society. 

After an arduous struggle, may not this battle field remain an inacces- 
sible object to both contending parties? Or if attained, through strife, by 
either, with all of the consequences of bitterness that strife entails, mjty it 
not be- a possession to be maintained with trouble, as it will have been 
hardly won ? Then will these two nations, of boasted intelligence, and 
kindred language, literature, laws, and blood, lie panting and exhausted 
and bleeding, from their abortive cliMts, like the clowns in the fable, who 
fought for the stars and the blue sky as cattle and pasture, mortified, 
ashamed, and punished for the mutual folly (hat had led them to battle. 



• Quelques hangars construits sur une cote inhospitaliere situee au 50c degre latitude nord au- 
dessus de la presqu'ile de Californie, et un miserable bastion defeiidu par des pierries, manquerent 
d'exciter une ^^uerre sanglante cntre deux grandes puissances Europeennes, et donnerent naisaance 
a une negociation qui fixa pendant quelques mois I'attention de toutes les puissances maritimcs d« 
I'Europe." (4 De Koch, oh. XXIV.) 



14 

The alleged circumstances upon which the respective claims of the two 
Governments rest are sufficiently well understood to authorize an applica- 
tion to them of principles of law. In this appeal to sound legal principles, 
facts not absolutely free from doubt may safely be assumed, without farther 
acquiescence in them than may be necessary for the sake of the argument. 
Some of them are so remote in their origin as to have become obscure 
from length of time ; and others are so imperfectly proved as to be render- 
ed doubtful by the want of evidence. In proportion to the darkness of 
our path should be the caution with which as travellers we tread in it. 
p'ortunately, there is in every controversy a fair and honorable means of 
settlement, either in the ascertainment of right and wrong, by the aid of 
reason, or, where the scales of justice are so nicely poised that there ought 
to be no preponderance, a result equally satisfactory may be found in 
mutual forbearance, concession, and compromise. 

It is not necessary to enter the lists prepared for very serious conflict 
with a claim to " clear and unquestionable title" on the part of Great 
Britain. Such pretension has never been made, unless it be quite recently, 
and then in responsive echo to the cry from high places here. Negotiators 
on the other side have either disavowed or omitted to assert a claim to title, 
in the strict sense of the term. They have been contented to question our 
loftier pretensions in this particular, to assert for themselves equal rights, 
to measure by a standard short of absolute perfection our claims, and to 
compare them with their own. Although claimhig the merit of early dis- 
coveries by Sir Francis Drake in the sixteenth century, they can scarcely 
fail to admit that the absence of effective settlements for two hundred years 
would open the way to other Governments to advance and maintain super- 
vening rights. 

In the statement already referred to of Messrs. Huskisson and Addington, 
in the negotiation of 1826 '-27, it is said: " It only remains for Great Britain 
to maintain and uphold the qualified rights which, she now possesses over 
the whole of the territory in question. These rights are recorded and de- 
fined in the convention of Noolka. They embrace the right to navigate 
the waters of those countries, the right to settle in and over any part of 
them, and the right freely to trade with the inhabitants and occupiers of the 
same. These rights have been peaceably exercised ever since the date of 
that convention — that is, for a period of near forty years. Under that con- 
vention, valuable British interests have grown up in those countries. It 
is fully admitted that the United States possess the same rights, although 
they have been exercised by them only in a single instance, and have not 
since the year 1813 been exercised at all. But beyond these rights they 
possess none." (Greenhow's Proofs and Illustrations, pages 444, 445.) 

The plenipotentiaries might have added, if it had been to the point then 
in view, a farther assertion of rights according to the Nootka convention. 
" The buildings and tracts of land situated on the northwest coast of North 
America, or on the islands adjacent to that continent, of which the subjects 
of His Britannic Majesty were dispossessed about the month of April, 17S9, 
by a Spanish officer, shall be restored to the said British subjects." (1st 
article treaty of the Escurial, October 28, 1790 — Greenhow's Proofs and 
Illustrations, page 476.) 

Article 2d provides, that "incase any of the said respective subjects 
shall, since the same period, have been forcibly dispossessed of their lands, 



15 

ic, theyshall-be re-established in the posesssion thereof, or a just compen- 
sation shall be made," &c. 

These articles, the applicalion of which will he seen in a moment, are 
disregarded in our confident discussions, diplomatic and parliamentary. I 
am constrained to bring them to a reluctant uiotice. 

In ascertaining the precise character of Britisli ri2;h(s, the point has been 
properly enough made, whether that nation ever hud possession of any land 
at Nootka sound. One would have thought that the acknowledgments in 
the Ireaty, o( dis/jusseisio7i di/Jo?^ce, and tlie stipulations of the treaty for a 
re-cstablishnip.nt in posscs.sioji, wove pregnant proofs of tlie fact o{ prcvions 
jwsscssio?), or at least of acknowledgment by a previous owner, which would 
be good against that owner, and against all claiming under him. For the 
purpose of the argument, it would matter little whether that possession pre- 
ceded or followed the treaty — caused the treaty, or was caused by it. Did 
It exist? Elaborate arguments have been submitted here, the bent and 
purpose of which are to prove the negative. Authorities, some of them 
already well collected and introduced in the same order by Mr. Greenhow, 
(pages 257, 258,) are vouched to sustain the argument. 

I will not dwell upon the insutficicnt character and sources of the asser- 
tions which have been vouched, although it would go (ar to aflect the validity 
of them. " A Captain Broughton" sending an officer into the Cove for intel- 
ligence, who, with the use, perhaps,of his telescope, discovered, as he thought, 
that the former Spanish settlement was occupied by an Indian village! 
Rather imperfect vietv, as the lawyers would term it, for the foundation of 
title, or for the destruciion of title! Segur's Historical Works are among 
the most agreeable productions of his day, but they arc not always au- 
thentic pieces of evidence. The " Political picture" which is quoted may 
be as much of a fancy sketch as some portions of the Campaign in Russia 
are said to be. Neither Segur's Works nor Belsham's partisan History 
are satisfactory proofs, especially of events not bearing on the great political 
events which they profess to record. The preparations for war resounded 
through several kingdoms of Europe. The treaty was digified by a birth 
and baptism at the Escurial. Noblemen were its sponsors — Lord Fitzher- 
bert on the one side, and Count Florida Blanca on the other. The scene 
and the persons of the drama were alike distinguished. An obscure act of 
redelivery of possession, nearly five years afterwards, at a remote corner of 
the globe — distant almost by its vast circumference — might well have 
escaped the attention of even more faithful historians. While gentlemen 
have been engaged in an unprofitable search for negative testimony, their 
researches have not led to any of a positive character. I am gratified in 
being able to accommodate them; and they will probably iidmit, as well 
from the appropriate department of knowledge in which it is found, as from 
its direct and affirmative nature, that it goes far to settl^ the paiticular 
question. It will account, too, lor the Lieutenant Pierce of the marines, 
though by a somewhat distorted name. In the " Traites de Paix entre 
les Puissances de I'Europe," of J\I. dc Koch, the facts arc distinctly and 
fully related in the 24th chapter, which is devoted to the history of the 
" traitede I'Escurial entre I'Espagne et la Grande Bretagne du 28 0ctobre, 
1790." " L'execution de la conveniion du 2S Octobre, 1790," (thus the 
author concludes his history of an eventful negotiation ami its consequences, 
which prevented a bloody war between two great European Powers, and 
fi.\ed for a period the attention of all the maritime Powers of Europe:) 



16 

^^'epronva, an reste,d^s difticultes qui la retarderent jusqu'en, 1795.' lilies 
ifurent termin6es le 23 Mars de cette annee, sur les lieux niemes, par le 
brigadier Espagnol Alava et le lieutenant Anglois Poara,'^ (this is "the 
desired Mr. Pierce,) "qui e'changereut des declarations dans le golfe de 
Nootka meme: apres que le fori Espagnol fut rase, les Espagnols s'etn- 
barquerent, etle pavilion Anglois y fut plante en signe de possession." The 
symbol and the act went together. They, are in speeches and correspondence 
overlooked. This event, it will be observed, took place in March, 1795. 
The "very curious original Spanish inanuscri[)t found in the Library of Con- 
gress,and entitled "Confidential Instructions for tlie Kingdom of New Spain," 
drawn up by Count Gigedo," &c., is "dated June 30, 1794." Yet the gentle- 
man from Indiana says, " We can hardly have anytliing more conclusive," 
as to an event that is not suggested to have occurred until some nine months 
afterwards. The whole error of the argument is one of chronology. Th6 
convention itself havjng tiiken place in the year 1790, its execution, which 
was merely delayed for between four and five years, is supposed never to 
have taken place. One of the passages quoted, however, declares that "a 
royal determination has been received for the abandonment of Nootka, to 
which service I have," says Gigedo, "in consequence of the death of the 
former commissioner, assigned Brigadier Don Jose Manuel de ^lava," 
&c. Accordingly, Koch's valuable work tells us that on the 23d March, 
1795, the difliculties were terminated on the spot '^par le brigadier Es- 
pagnol Jilava^'' the very officer appointed for the purpose by Count 
Gigedo on the 30th June, 1794, one week less than nine months previously. 
It is a most curious circumstance, that this authentic piece of history should be 
entirely unknown to Mr. Buchanan, who asserts that no sufficient evidenc'O 
has been adduced, that either Nootka Sound or any other spot upon the 
coast was ever actually surrendered by Spain to Great Britain. The ''cu- 
rious manuscript" is noticed hy Mr. Grcenhow, as presented by General 
Tornel. 

England thus shows a /70.?.ve.5.9/o;?, small, indeed, and not perhaps ih'- 
tended for all the purposes of permanent residence; still settlement — occu- 
pancy — pedis positio — vvhilei it lasted; something more than mere pre- 
liminary or inchoate right, founded on discovery, and susceptible of being 
done away by non-user or neglect ; in its history not unlike that of Astoria 
in gelation to ourselves. .Both were possessed, dispossessed, and by treaty 
restored, and afterwards neglected or abandoned. It would not be easy in 
any of these particulars to draw a distinction between them. In one respect 
Nootka has a decided advantage — that its rivalcolony of Astoria, previously 
to the act of dispossession by the Racoon sloop of war, 1st December, 1813, 
had been sold, with all its stores of peltries, to a chartered company of the 
capturing nation. This capture by Britons of British property was like the 
purchase from the condemned culprit of his body by the surgeon — a bite— 
because he was to be hanged in chains. 

The fact of British possession at Nootka .threatens no such evils as have 
been intimated. Look at your map. Mr. Greenhow's has not each sepa- 
rate degree marked, although the eye can sufficiently well discriminate its 
position. On Mofras's map every degree is numbered. Nootka is about 
midway between 4 9 and 50. The southern straitsof Juan de Fuca, the 
great enti-ance to Admiralty Inlet, that capacious inlet itself, and all the 
appertaining waters, dre south of Nootka.. An arrangement upon the basis 
of 49° would secure to us the benefit of the whole of them. 



17 

If a possession at Nootka Sound gives a southern indication of British 
color of right as early as 1788 at least, (Greenhow, page 290,) the 
trading establishment of Simon Fraser,in 1806, on what is called " Eraser's 
Lake,'' in the 54th degree of latitude, and different posts, which in 1808 
received the name of New Caledonia, in the same region, mark the position 
of no dissimilar claims to the north. The Nootka restoration derives addi- 
tional importance from the fact that it was a recognition, by both Govern- 
ments that were parties to it, of the original possession taken by John 
Meares, in 1788. This was several years after its discovery on the 9th 
August, 1774, under the parallel of 49° 30', by Juan Perez, who gave it 
the name of Port San Lorenzo, which, four years afterwards, was changed 
by Captain Cook to King George's, or Nootka Sound. That original act 
of possession by Meares was at first perhaps equivocal, for two reasons: 
1st, because Meares, though a British subject, sailed under Portuguese 
colors : 2dly, because his establishment may have been designed for a tem- 
porary and occasional purpose. The subsequent ratification by his Govern- 
ment takes away from it all ambiguity, identifies upon settled principles 
the sovereignty with the first proceeding, and gives something like perma- 
nency and definite e/fect to the wliole. It is inipossible to treat with dis- 
respect so grave, so well authenticated, so available a transaction. 

Connected with these important circumstances is the series of events of 
which Alexander Mackenzie was the author. Twice did he traverse this 
before unexplored region all the way to the ocean. His first expedition 
was in 1789, but was confined in its progress to the now Russian posses- 
sions. The second, in 1 792-'93, thirteen or fourteen years before the parallel 
exploration of Lewis and Clarke, went dnectly through the disputed ter- 
ritory. The river which he floated down for two hundred and fifty miles 
(then called by the Indians the Tacoutehee-Tessee — at present, by every 
body, Eraser's river) has its mouth in the straits of Fuca, near to the forty- 
ninth degree of latitude, but below it half a degree by the blessing of 
Providence. 

The two countries, England and Ainerica, rest their respective claims, 
for the most part, upon similar grounds. Each asserts for itself rediscovery, 
exploration, additional exploration, and formal, but partial, possession — and 
each must admit at least partial abandonment. 

Nootka Sound, discovered by Juan Perez, August, 9, 1774, was occupied 
by John Meares in 1788. His vessels were seized, and himself, it would 
seem, dispossessed by the Spaniards in 1789, and possession fully restored 
or given to the British in 1795. 

The Straits of Fuca were perhaps discovered by Juan de Fuca in 1592 ; 
rediscovered by Captain Berkeley, in the British ship Imperial Eagle, in 
1787; and by John Meares in the following year; and completely sur- 
veyed by Vancouver and Broughton in 1792. 

The Columbia river was discovered by Heceta, August 15, 1775, and 
named " Assumption Inlet," although the Mexican charts immediately 
called it Rio St. Roc. It was entered by ('aptain Gray, May 11, 1792, and 
was subsequently explored and surveyed to a much more considerable ex- 
tent by Vancouver. 

Astoria was established in ISll, under the auspices of Mr. Astor, but 
with a company composed principally of British subjects. On the 16th of 
October, 1813, all its establishments, furs, and stock in hand, were sold to 
the British Northwest Company, for about fifty-eight thousand dollars. 



18 . • 

Captain Black, of the Raccoon, Britisli sloop of war, took possession on the 
1st of December, 1813. On the Gth of October, 1818, the joint commis- 
sioners on the part of Great Britain, in pursuance of the treaty of peace, 
declared that they restored, and Mr. Prevost declared that he accepted for 
the United States, the settlement of Fort George. Things were placed, by 
this formal act, in the status ante helium. 

Lewis and Clarke's explorations were long snbsequent to those of Alex- 
ander Mackenzie; and they were so fairly undertaken, with the kind as- 
sistance of the diplomatic representatives of other nations, that an advan- 
tage over other nations could scarcely be claimed from them. Mr, Jeffer- 
son's instructions to Captain Lewis, his former private secretary, look to 
broader and more philanthropic objects. Such as they were, they were 
followed by no acts of occupation for about thirty years. The first of such 
transactions are believed to have occurred in the year 1834. 

Mr. Buchanan is not quite sustained in tiie broad position assumed in 
his last letter, that this proceeding was " preparatory to the occupation of 
the territory by the United States;" nor is he entirely accurate in the as- 
sertion that Lewis and Clarke " first explored the Columbia from its sources 
to its mouth." 

While the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain have disclaimed tille,'\n the 
proper sense of the word, they have most pertinaciously insisted upon 
claim of right. Once and again has the attempt been made to argue and 
urge them to a relinquishment of that right, and as often has the attempt 
signally failed. If on our side the word title has been used, and with it 
strong epithets implying an absence of obscurity or question, the difference 
has arisen from a different application of terms to precisely one and the 
same thing. Our claims are derived from similar sources. Without quar- 
relling about words, we should rather look at the thing, and see how far 
these exclusive pretensions can be maintained. 

The Spanish title, as it is called, might safely be left with what has been 
so well said by Mr. Gallatin. After an abandonment of more than a hun- 
dred and seventy years, it could not be regarded as of great value, unless 
resuscitated with an impulse more than equal to that of its early vigor. 
The country is greatly indebted to this experienced statesman for the let- 
ters he has recently publisiied. His close connexion with the proceedings 
of a former day, on which nearly every thing nuist rest, his clear intellect 
and far reaching intelligence, have enabled him to shed valuable light from 
the bright sources of an unfading mind. 

Refuge at last is taken in the alleged discovery of the Columbia river 
by Captain Gray. Admitting, for the sake of I he argument, all that is 
claimed in point of fact for this nautical exploit, its priority, nationality, and 
design, the great obstacle remains — what is its extent? The answer is 
familiarly given. A discovery of the moutli of a river, we are constantly 
and confidently told, extends the right which that circumstance confers to 
the territory drained by its waters. A principle like this might possibly 
suit some of the rivers, as they are called, of the fine estuary which receives 
the waters of the Susquehanna. They are broad inlets half a dozen miles 
in length, and are merely borrowed from the bay. Possibly you might 
have found an inclination towards such a principle in some Dutch legend 
or Italian romance, where a greater prolongation is given by nature to the 
lazy Scheld or wandering Po. But to ascribe to a momentary looker-on of 
the inhospitable debouche of the Mississippi, or even the capacious gulf 



• 19 

which distinguishes the entrance of the Amazon, such extensive results, 
would be near akin to positive absurdity. It would only fall short of that 
Papal bull which, <' de nostra mera libertate," drew a line from pole to pole 
in favor of their Most Catholic Majesties. Where would such indefinite ex- 
tension end ? From the main river you would ascend all its tributary streams, 
Ihence gaze with gloating appetite upon every mountain rill ; and if, through 
the bases of the Stony mountains, some dark cavern sheds a modest drop 
from its obscure and benighted bed on the eastern side of the girdle of the 
great West, which finds its way to Oregon, this will embrace, by the same 
vague hypothesis, the /anr/of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and all the rivers 
of the continent. Lawyer after lawyer has built his argument upon this bold 
assumption. As with the irregular pronunciation of certain ancient classi- 
cal names, we might be bound to yield the principle to authority if it could 
be found. Where is it ? Hidden in the recesses of the temple, with the 
mysterious worship of the Grand Lama of Thibet ? Veiled, like the Prophet 
of Khorassan, to conceal his splendors from human vision ? Written, like 
laws of the Roman tyrant, on lofty pillars, beyond the reach of human 
scrutiny ? 

" If," says the Secretary of State to the country and the world, " the 
discovery of the mouth of a river, followed up within reasonable time by 
the first exploration both of its main channels and its branches, and 
appropriated by the first settlements on its banks, do not constitute a title 
to the territory drained by its waters in the nations performing thes^e acts, 
then the principles consecrated by the practice of civilized nations ever 
since the discovery of the new world must have lost their force. These 
principles were necessary to preserve the peace of the world." 

I will not repeat the facts already stated, or ask for an interpretation of 
" reasonable time," " first exploration," and " first settlements,^' or submit 
to you the dilemma of a draining by Frazer's river about the same time, 
in seeking to support what are called principles consecrated ever since the 
discovery of tlie new world. If there exist for particular objects, and be- 
tween particular Powers, occasional treaties with new clauses in them, 
those are voluntary acts, the influence of which begins and ends with the 
high contracting parties who made them. If there be such ?i principle — a 
SACRED principle, necessary for the peace of nations, time-honored by the 
lapse of three hundred and fifty-four years, according to the minute 
computation of the Siscretary, why has it escaped an authentic place 
in the records of a science which had no existence until after the 
discovery of the new world, towards the close of the fifteenth century ? 
Grotius, the father of the law of nations, wrote and died in the seven- 
teenth century. Pufl'endorf was born in the year 163L Barbeyrac 
lived and died in the eighteenth century, and Vattel's first edition was 
published within less than ninety years from the present day, and the 
last in the year 1844. His work is deservedly held in the highest esteem. 
It exhibits, however, no trace of the doctrine assumed by you. On the 
contrary, such a pretension, by which a nation would engross, as I main- 
tain, a wilderness, or, as Vattel says, a much greater extent of territory 
than it is able to people or cultivate, would be " an absolute infringement 
of the natural rights of men, and repugnant to the views of nature.^* 
Remember how extensive are the fields over which your aspiring claims 
would run. The bull's hide which was made to cover the circumference 
of Carthage would be a pigmy illustration. A difficult and dangerous 



20 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



017 187 207 8 



entrance, almost imperceptible to the eye, and almost inaccessible to the 
boldest keel, gives, it is said, initiate rights to a "region," "territory," an 
"t entire region"'T-in other- words, to a country and a world. Will not 
such extravagant attempts expose us to just complaints for an over- 
weening ambition, and tend to give support to charges which have been 
already brought against us? One gentleman has extended his colossal 
arms beyond the arctic circle. Another, delighted with the capacious 
maw of his fat hero — the happy emblem of "masterly inactivity" on the 
plains of Shrewsbury — desires to swallow up the universe. The Scythian 
ambassadors said to Alexander, " If your person were as gigsfntic as your 
desires, the world would not contain you. With your right hand you 
would touch the east, and with your left the west, at the same time. 
From Europe you would lay hold on Asia, and from Asia you would 
seize Europe ; and when at last you had conquered all mankind, you 
would wage war with stones and trees, with rivers and wild beasts, and 
■ attempt to subdue nature." 

- Another description of title has been more than once relied'on. Without 
arrogating any great pretensions to knowledge of the law, in any of its varied 
regions, I confess myself profoundly unacquainted with the laws of desti- 
ny. It has no laws ; it never had them. It was in the dark forebodings 
of an ancient mythology supposed to be the inexplicable doom of men and 
nations. Blind and ignorant at all times, its decrees were for the most 
part cruel and wicked. Side by side with the Furies, Alecto and her 
hateful sisters, the Fates dispensed gifts and sufferings with indiscriminat- 
ing hand. They appeared again in the halls of Odin, administering 
draughts of blood in cups of human skulls. They yielded to the benignant 
providence of a better fate ; and have been occasionally revived in a na- 
tional assembly, under the assumed garb of a Goddess of Reason, or in 
another hemisphere seated in the car of Juggernaut. Never may they find 
altars or votaries in the halls of American legislation. 

While investigating the merits of disputed questions, it should be our 
first endeavor to prevent interest and passion from inducing us to deceive 
ourselves. We have rights in Oregon — rights which, at every hazard, 

must be upheld. But it is not by giving to them a name or a character 
beyond their true deserts that in their integrity they are to be maintained. 



